"And new factories are being established in the United States now
by both US and foreign companies. So we were in a period of
de-industrialization and I think that is reversing itself as
well."

McCausland is tapped in to the manufacturing industry and most of
the economy because his company sells compressed gasses for
everything from
nuclear welding to soda
fountains.

McCausland does acknowledge, though, that
US manufacturing is in a dark place right now, with bad news
coming from other companies in serving other industries.

"I think everybody is trying to bring down expectations, but with
those manufacturing customers, sales are down so far it's hard to
imagine it's going to get worse," McCausland
said.

McCausland pointed to a number of reasons for this expected
turnaround, but one that he kept coming back to was the
turnaround in major fixed and infrastructure investments in the
US.

"I'm not an economist, but I do believe that the US share of
fixed investment is going to be significantly higher in the next
20 years than it was in the last 20 years," said McCausland.

"That will be partly driven by abundant and inexpensive energy
and partly driven by the need for energy infrastructure which —
there remains a lot that needs to be built out in this country —
and partly driven by other types of infrastructure that have been
long neglected."

"We think abundant and inexpensive energy is ultimately going to
be very good for the country," said McCausland.

"The strong dollar ... I don't know how it can get much
stronger. Perhaps that's run its course; perhaps that will
reverse a little bit if the Fed doesn't raise rates. But we have
these currency wars going on ... because the world
economy in general is still pretty fragile and governments are
trying to stimulate growth."

McCausland's comments preceded an impressive beat from the
Chicago
PMI index on Friday, a good sign for manufacturing in the
Midwest.

So while McCausland recognizes
that the economy is in a tough spot, he's finding plenty of
reasons to be optimistic.